


Make This Chaos Count

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, First Kiss, spoilers for 122
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28948299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: There is no telling where all of this will go next, what comes after waking up to something like this. Yasha isn't thinking that far ahead yet. They are here, now, and Beau needs her.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 16
Kudos: 219





	Make This Chaos Count

It was the way she sat quietly and let Yasha work that worried her. Beau was a constant coiled spring, energy condensed to a single, vivacious point that was always on the go and ready to fire at any given moment. Yasha had a long list of memories that involved patching Beau up, and the only ones that didn't involve having to work around Beau's restlessness and administer exasperated chidings of "hold still" or "Just another minute" had come after some truly awful things.

She wasn't having to remind Beau to sit still now.

They were on the floor in the seating area just outside Yasha's room, where Yasha had carried her after it had become clear that Beau was in no state to join the frantic and hushed discussions on their next steps. Yasha kept her touch light as she wound Beau's wraps over the back of her hand, stripe by measured stripe until the red eye disappeared beneath the blue fabric entirely. Beau had been watching impassively, and only when the eye was completely obscured did her shoulders relax even the slightest amount. Her eyes fluttered shut for only as long as it took her to inhale, opening again as she exhaled and pushed away the tension she'd been holding since Yasha had woken to find her standing with Caleb in the middle of the floor.

She finished pulling the strips between Beau's fingers and secured the tail alongside her wrist, but clasped Beau's hand in both of hers instead of letting go. "Better?"

Beau flexed her hand, looking uncertain but not moving away. "Yeah." She swallowed. "Thanks." She hadn't been able to look at Yasha directly, and even now her gaze stayed down and made that distant alarm bell in the back of Yasha's mind a little louder.

She traced a finger along the wraps covering Beau's knuckles and spoke softly. "Will you talk to me?" 

Beau's head cocked the smallest amount, but she didn't look up from their hands. She looked exhausted in the dim lights, the shadows pulling across her face and deepening an expression Yasha already couldn't read.

"You don't have to pretend for me, Yasha," she said. "It's okay." There was something dull in her voice, something resigned and flat that reminded Yasha very suddenly of the version of Beau that had offered to leave them just those few short weeks ago. Something about tonight was undoing the work Beau had put in, the efforts she had made to see herself the way the Nein did.

It felt crucial that Yasha find out what exactly it was, like she might lose something precious if she didn't.

Yasha shifted herself closer until the knees of their crossed legs touched, peering harder and trying her best to connect the dots that would make this easier for Beau. "Pretend what?" 

Beau lifted her chin to indicate her wrapped hand, as though they could be talking about anything else. "That it's not... _bothering_ you." 

On impulse, Yasha threaded their fingers together. "It terrifies me," she said. That, for some reason, finally got Beau to look right at her in something like surprise. "That's why I'm here, where I can help you. I want to know what about it is scaring you."

A muscle in Beau's jaw flexed and she swallowed hard, looking back to their hands. "It's nothing. Fucking...slap on the wrist for reading the wrong book. Bound to happen one day." She grew quiet, but it was a silence of thought and not finality.

Yasha waited patiently as Beau struggled for words. Now wasn't the time to say it, but a part of her was honored to be trusted with the attempt at all.

"I'm just saying," Beau said haltingly. "If this is…if something happens and you have to leave me, if something else -"

There it was, the real fear at the heart of this. Not Yasha's, Beau's. She was terrified of being separated from them, even as she tried to say it would be okay if they had to run. 

It would not be okay - Beau could not be left any more than Yasha could leave her.

"Stop," she said. "I understand now."

Beau's rush of words cut off with visible effort, shoulders rising and falling with her breaths.

"I am not going anywhere," Yasha insisted. "None of us are."

A corner of Beau's mouth threatened to crumple, a shudder going through her. "You should," she whispered.

Yasha's heart fractured with a deafening lack of sound. She didn't think, just took one hand from Beau's and touched her cheek. She looked so young suddenly, her eyes shiny and unable to make it to Yasha's face even as she turned reflexively into Yasha's palm.

"I tried to write it down, Yasha." Her voice was lower than usual, slower to keep from shaking. "I am an Expositor. I discover secrets, and I write them down to help other people."

Yasha remembered the notebook lying open on the bed, the unintelligible scrawl. She had thought it a product of frustration, or perhaps a scratching out of something terrible. Looking at Beau now, the pieces fit together into a terrifying conclusion.

"It took that away from you."

Now Beau's expression did crack. "I wrote down words. They made sense." She pulled her hand from Yasha's, curled it carefully against her chest and leaned away. "It's in my _head_."

Yasha saw her retreating and reached for her without a second thought, wrapped both arms around Beau and pulled her close to hold her there on the floor of the sitting room. "I've got you," she said. "Breathe, Beau." Beau's arms clenched vice-like around her shoulders and her face buried the crook of Yasha's neck as she took in trembling, harsh gasps of air.

"What if it unmakes me, Yasha?" Her words broke hot and damp against the fabric over Yasha's collarbone. "If I end up like Lucien?"

"You won't," Yasha said fiercely. "Lucien wanted this. He searched for it."

Beau's fingers curled against Yasha's back. "We read the book. Maybe that's enough."

Yasha rubbed her cheek along the short fuzz on the side of Beau's undercut. "Anybody can read a book," she said. "I think Lucien might have always just been a huge dick."

Beau's sudden laugh was more of an explosive cough. "I'm halfway there then."

Yasha could feel Beau's rabbit heart thudding against her like this, smell the sweat and musk in her hair and feel the vitality in every muscle of her compact body. "I won't let anything happen to you," Yasha whispered. "And I will not leave you."

She counted two ragged breaths, then, shakily: "Bet you say that to all the girls."

It wasn't funny, but Yasha grinned and buried it in the back of Beau's neck. "You're such an asshole," she murmured.

She knew Beau would meet her there, and she didn't disappoint. "Good thing I have it on the _highest_ authority that you like that about me."

"You hate authority."

"Not yours."

"Oh?"

Beau froze, breathing and all. "Uh."

Now now Yasha did laugh quietly. "I'll remember that."

It was far from okay. Some yet-unknown corner had been turned, and neither of them could know how long it would be until "okay" was even in sight again. But Beau's body was warm and there was still a blush in her smile when Yasha picked her up and settled them in a big chair, and Yasha was no stranger to snatching small victories from within huge crises. None of them were, but it was a new skill for her and she knew it was for Beau too.

It felt like it was everything, that even with the threat of two of their own being marked, Beau could curl up here with Yasha and they could face this together - laughing, even at the wrong times.

The door to Yasha's room opened to admit Caduceus, who had to stoop a little for a frame not quite made for him. He was carrying Yasha's cloak, and he smiled at the two of them in their chair. "I hoped you might be able to talk," he said. "Silver linings and all. I wanted to tell you that Caleb fell asleep, and he…seems to be staying that way."

Yasha felt Beau's body relax slightly against her and realized that she had likely been afraid to close her eyes.

"Thanks, Caddy," said Beau.

He nodded and held up the cloak. "You look comfortable. Would you like me to put this over you?" He smiled at them, a tired but earnest thing. "If it helps at all, I was already planning to if you were asleep."

"I don't mind," Yasha said, and Beau nodded.

Caduceus draped the cloak over the both of them, and Beau gave a little sigh of contentment that seemed to surprise herself and made Yasha's heart do something complicated.

"S'warm," she said, a faint blush to her cheeks. "Smells like you."

Yasha smiled. "I am also warm and smell like me," she pointed out.

"Yeah," Beau agreed. "But your bed didn't, so this is pretty great. Double Yasha."

Yasha had never given too much thought to how she smelled unless it was good, like after a bath, or bad like being covered in drying guts. She'd definitely never considered what smell she might leave on things like her cloak or her largely unused bed. Maybe she would now.

Beau looked up at Caduceus as Yasha tried to process the amount of warmth washing over her from that simple comment. "Keep an eye on Caleb," she told him. "I'll be okay out here with Yasha."

Caduceus nodded. "Of course." He looked up past Beau and caught Yasha's eye for a long moment. He didn't say anything, but Yasha knew they were both thinking of the conversation they'd had just those few weeks ago, watching their friends spin in various levels of awkwardness and delight.

Another moment of joy snatched from the shadow of something looming above. She was beginning to see a pattern.

Yasha smiled at him. "Thanks for…checking in," she said, and he smiled warmly back.

"Get some rest. I get the feeling tomorrow is going to be interesting."

When the door shut behind him, Beau looked from it to Yasha. "What was that about?"

Yasha pulled her feet up into the chair and was delighted when the back of it gave and leaned so that they were still sitting, but also lying back just slightly. "Nothing," she said, reaching to adjust the fur trim of her cloak so that it covered Beau's shoulder better. "He was reminding me that we talked outside the dance hall while we were there, that's all."

Beau settled closer, eyes getting heavy but trained on Yasha's face. "He tell you to write a poem?" she teased.

"No," said Yasha. "That was Jester."

"Seriously?"

Yasha felt gratified by the mix of embarrassment and delight on Beau's face, made sweeter by the redness lingering around her eyes from the state she'd been in only a few moments before. "Yeah," she said. "She helped me write some of it, but I'm…people should write you poems, Beau, but they should also be good poems."

"And people should kiss you," Beau said seriously. "But only if you want."

Yasha huffed, unsurprised by Beau's ability to leap six thoughts ahead in a conversation but feeling heat begin to flow to her face regardless. "Something like that," she said quietly, watching her finger rub the same spot of fur over and over. She took a deep breath. "And I do want, but not just because things are…" she gestured vaguely.

"Fucked?" Beau grinned slowly. "Hey, I'm not against getting something good out of the world trying to end on us."

Yasha flashed a brief smile, and they both grew serious again a moment later. She felt Beau's left hand open and close where it rested against both of their stomachs, watched her mouth work while she looked for the right words. "It's okay though," she began. "If…we don't know if I'm a risk, and I understand if it's too much like -"

"Beau," Yasha interrupted gently. "I already know all of that. Twice, I've lost someone because I couldn't be there when they needed me. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere." She looked steadily into those blue eyes, reached to push back that one strand of hair that always freed itself from Beau's undercut to hang in her face. "Now," she said, "will you please sit up here a little so I can reach you?"

Beau's smile was shy, but it was also bright as she shifted her weight up a bit with a small wiggle. Now her head was more on Yasha's shoulder instead of her chest, and the skin on Yasha's throat prickled under the feeling of Beau's breathing. "Better?" she asked softly, a direct echo of Yasha's earlier question.

"Ask me again in a minute," said Yasha, and then neither of them said anything more.


End file.
